Happiness Matters: Creating a Culture for Business to Thrive — Transcript

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1. 0:02um and so most people when they hear
2. 0:05about zapo think of us as an online
3. 0:07retailer of shoes because that's how we
4. 0:09started but internally we actually have
5. 0:12a different philosophy and a different
6. 0:14saying we actually have a saying that
7. 0:15we're service company that just happens
8. 0:17to sell shoes and we're hoping 10 years
9. 0:20from now people won't even realize we
10. 0:21started out selling shoes online and
11. 0:23actually today we sell a lot more than
12. 0:24shoes we sell clothing and beauty
13. 0:27products uh handbags hous words kitchen
14. 0:29wear and really our goal is just to
15. 0:32build the zachos brand to be about the
16. 0:34very best customer service and customer
17. 0:37experience and we and it actually
18. 0:39doesn't even have to be limited to
19. 0:40online we've had customers email us and
20. 0:41ask us if we could please uh start an
21. 0:44airline or run the IRS
22. 0:47and we're not going to do either of
23. 0:49those things this year um but 20 or 30
24. 0:53years from now I wouldn't rule out as
25. 1:00analogous to Virgin you know they're
26. 1:01they're in music Airlines and so on uh
27. 1:03the difference is the Virgin brand is
28. 1:05more about being hip and cool whereas we
29. 1:07just want to be about the very best
30. 1:09service and so our whole philosophy is
31. 1:11let's take most of the money that we
32. 1:13would have spent on paid advertising or
33. 1:14paid marketing and rather spend it on
34. 1:16that invest it into customer service and
35. 1:19the customer experience and then let our
36. 1:21customers do the marketing for us
37. 1:22through word and mouth the customer
38. 1:24experience but for all the focus on that
39. 1:27and even though we want to build our
40. 1:28brand around that the number number one
41. 1:30priority of the company is actually not
42. 1:32customer service our number one priority
43. 1:34is company culture and our whole belief
44. 1:36is that if we get the culture right most
45. 1:38of the other stuff like delivering great
46. 1:39customer service or building a long-term
47. 1:41enduring brand or business that'll just
48. 1:43be a natural byproduct of that so uh
49. 1:45some of the stuff we do on the culture
50. 1:47side it starts with the hiring process
51. 1:49for everyone that's hired uh it doesn't
52. 1:51matter what position uh cing lawyer
53. 1:54software developer we actually do two
54. 1:56sets of interviews the first set is kind
55. 1:58of your standard setu the hiring manager
56. 2:00and his or her team will interview for
57. 2:01fit within the team relevant experience
58. 2:03technical ability and so on but then our
59. 2:05HR department does a separate set of
60. 2:07interviews purely for culture fit and
61. 2:10they have to pass both in order to be
62. 2:12hired so we've passed on a lot of really
63. 2:14smart talented people that we know can
64. 2:17make an immediate impact on our top or
65. 2:19bottom line but if they're bad for our
66. 2:20culture they're not a fit for our
67. 2:22culture we won't hire them it's it's not
68. 2:23even uh a question and uh and the
69. 2:26reverse is true too even if someone is
70. 2:28doing their specific job function ly
71. 2:30fine even if they're a superstar in that
72. 2:31job function if they're bad for the
73. 2:33culture we'll fire them just for that
74. 2:35reason alone and our performance reviews
75. 2:37are 50% based on whether you're living
76. 2:39or inspiring zap's culture and others in
77. 2:42the market there's a lot of um
78. 2:45Consultants books and so on that talk
79. 2:46about how to motivate employees you know
80. 2:48a lot of corporate America actually
81. 2:50motivates employees through fear uh but
82. 2:53there's other more positive ways you can
83. 2:55motivate employees you can motivate them
84. 2:56through recognition uh you can motivate
85. 2:59them through incentives if you do X then
86. 3:01I'll give you y but what we found at
87. 3:03zapo is there's a huge huge difference
88. 3:06between motivation and
89. 3:08inspiration and if you can Inspire your
90. 3:10employees through a vision that has a
91. 3:13higher purpose Beyond just money or
92. 3:15profits or being number one in the
93. 3:16market and if you can Inspire your
94. 3:18employees through having core values
95. 3:21corporate core values not just stated
96. 3:23values but actually practice values that
97. 3:25match their own personal values then you
98. 3:27can accomplish so much more and you
99. 3:29don't really need to worry about the
100. 3:30motivation part of it it just kind of
101. 3:32takes care of itself and this is the
102. 3:34evolution of our how we thought about
103. 3:35our brand uh because we didn't we kind
104. 3:37of stumbled into this you know it
105. 3:39originally was just let's just be the
106. 3:41market leader in shoes and then four
107. 3:43years into it we all sat around and
108. 3:45asked ourselves what do we want to be
109. 3:47when we grow up do we want to be about
110. 3:49shoes or do we want to be about
111. 3:51something more meaningful and that's
112. 3:53when we decided okay let's build the
113. 3:54zapo brand to be about the very best
114. 3:56customer service and customer experience
115. 3:58and when we exited that and communicated
116. 4:01that to our employees a funny thing
117. 4:04happened that we didn't anticipate we
118. 4:05found that suddenly employees were a lot
119. 4:07more engaged and passionate about the
120. 4:09company and when customers called they
121. 4:11could sense that the person on the other
122. 4:13end of the phone wasn't there just for a
123. 4:15paycheck but truly wanted to deliver
124. 4:16great service and when vendors visited
125. 4:19us we found that they wanted to visit us
126. 4:21not only more frequently but stay longer
127. 4:23and so all these things had this kind of
128. 4:25multiplicative Snowball Effect that
129. 4:27really